memory experiments

the duration of short term memory - systematically study how long info is retained in STM when there is no verbal rehearsal

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how did they do this study?

they took 24 students, the experimenter gave them a nonsense trigram and a 3 digit no., the student counted backwards in 3s from this number for 3, 6,9,12,15,18secs and then had to recall the trigram, they had 2 practices and 8 exp. trials

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what were the 2 findings?

1. the shorter the interval between presentation and recall the greater the number of accurately recalled trigrams, 2. 90% remembered at 3s, 2% remembered at 18s

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give the three conclusions

1. info stays in STM for less than 18s if verbal rehearsal is prevented, 2. some info can disappear after just 3s, 3. STM has a v. short duration if verbal rehearsal is prevented.

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give three criticisms of this experiment

1. not a representative sample used, 2. students may be more prone to demand characteristics, 3. lacks ecological validity as you cant apply it to real life because this is not the way that memory is used in real life.

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who investigated the duration of long term memory?

Bahrick et al

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what were the aims of this experiment?

to compare verbal and visual LTM through investigation in a natural setting using personally significant memories

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who were the ps?

400 ps aged 17-74

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what three tests were the ps given?

1. free recall, 2. photo recognition consisting of 50 photos of which some were in ps yearbook, 3. name recognition test

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what are 3 findings of this experiment?

1. ps tested within 15yrs of graduation were 90% accurate in visual and verbal, 2. after 48yrs - 80% for name and 70% for photo, 3. after 15yrs free recall - 60% accrete, after 48yrs - 30%

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give 3 conclusions of this experiment.

1. evidence that LTM can last for up to 57yrs, 2. theres loss of memory over time, 3. verbal recall almost as good as visual

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give 2 strengths of this experiment

1. ecologically valid, 2. very representative sample used

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give a weakness of this experiment

lack of control as some people may have kept in touch with their high school friends

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what is the technical term for this

a confounding variable

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what did Jacobs experiment on?

the capacity of STM

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how did he do this?

devised the serial digit span - ps presented with series of items and then they must repeat them back in the correct order

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what two things did he do for ensure that there were no confounding variables?

he didn't use the letter W or the number 7 as they are both multiple syllables, he also read he items in a metronome

ps watched a film of a car accident and were then asked if they saw A/THE broken headlight

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findings?

THE - 17% yes, A - 7% yes

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one criticism

lab experiment - lacks ecological valitidty

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who interviewed 110 real witnesses to bank robberies?

Christianson and Hubinette

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what did they find?

witnesses who had been threatened had more detailed and accurate recall than those who were onlookers and were less emotionally aroused this was true even 15m later

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what are the 2 possible conclusions from this experiment?

emotional arousal improves recall...or research confounds emotional arousal and how close a witness was to the "action"

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who investigated how memory is reconstructed when recall is repeated over a period of weeks/months and how cultural expectations affect memory leading to predictable distortions?

Bartlett

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what was his procedure?

"repeated reproductions" - showed p story/simple drawing and asked them to reproduce it after e.g. 15mins the days, then weeks, then months, then years - stimulus material belonged to different culture to ps who didn't know the purpose of the study

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findings

ps reme,bered different parts of the stories

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what transformations did Bartlett observe?

story was shortened due to omissions, language was changed e.g canoe to boat, recalled version became fixed even though there were slight variations with each recall

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give 2 conclusions

transformations made material easier to remember, people don't remember details but fragments which they reconstruct using their knowledge of social situations

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who found that recall was improved by schema and how?

Bewehr and Treyens - ps waited in an office room with some office-like objects e.g. desk, and some non office-like objects eg skull - ps remembered more office-like objects due to their schema of an office

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who found that schemas hindered recall and how?

Allport and Postman - ps showed image of a white man threatening black man with a razor on he train, when asked to recall image ps "remembered" the black man threatening the white man with the razor.

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who did a lab study on the weapons effect and how?

Loftus - ps seated outside lab one group heard an amicable disagreement and a man emerged holding a pen, the other group heard and angry argument followed by the sound of breaking glass and overturned furniture and a man emerging with a bloody knife

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what were the findings and conclusion?

ps from the second group identified the man less accurately because their focus was on the knife rather than the mans face due to anxiety

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give 2 ethical issues with this experiment

1. deception, 2. psychological harm

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give an experiment that looks ion the effect of age on EWT

Poole and Lindsay - kids aged 3-8 watched a science demonstration afterwards their parents read them stories with some of the same and some novel info - children then questioned about the demonstration - the kids added novel info into orig. memories

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what happened after this

kids asked to think v carefully about where they had gotten their info from - some of the older kids revised account and extracted post-event info, but younger kids couldn't

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what is the name for what the children were asked to do after their first account?

source monitoring

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give the name of one other study that supports this one

parker and carranza

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who developed the cognitive interview technique and how did they support it with evidence?

officers found that CI took too ling so they just used RE and CR than CP and RO

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who backs this?

Milne and Bull

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give 3 issues with research into CI

1. hard to evaluate as it is not 1 but 4 techniques and different forces use different parts so its hard to compare findings, 2. its often researched in a lab with volunteers who aren't emotionally aroused + they see the whole incident so no eco val

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Front

how did they do this study?

Back

they took 24 students, the experimenter gave them a nonsense trigram and a 3 digit no., the student counted backwards in 3s from this number for 3, 6,9,12,15,18secs and then had to recall the trigram, they had 2 practices and 8 exp. trials